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  #1  
Old 06-07-2013, 12:59 PM
stephen perry 1 stephen perry 1 is offline
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Default Small Game Hunting

Day hunt or pack in. Short Range or Long Range. Mouse killer or lion hunter. Each has it's needs. Need water need food. On foot maybe a drive-around. Clean rifles/handguns in the field or in your shop. What say you pilgrims.

Stephen Perry
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  #2  
Old 06-07-2013, 06:59 PM
Stan from Pa. Stan from Pa. is offline
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Default Worn out shooter?

Stephen,
still waiting on explanation on [how a barrel never wears out, only the shooter?]
Stan

Last edited by Stan from Pa.; 06-08-2013 at 01:50 AM.
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  #3  
Old 06-08-2013, 12:57 AM
stephen perry 1 stephen perry 1 is offline
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You mind deleting your Post I want to hear from some Small Game hunters. Stan we can talk on that barrel subject later.

Stephen Perry

Last edited by stephen perry 1; 06-08-2013 at 01:04 AM.
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  #4  
Old 06-08-2013, 07:17 AM
Kiwishooter Kiwishooter is offline
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Stan I was pretty worn out after a Benchrest match last weekend.......I loaded for 2 (my wife and I) cleaned both rifles, changed all targets for both details, moved the targets frames from 100 to 200 and back again, set up the range for the match and took in all the target frames after the match finished.

I was plumb worn out and didn't look forward to spending 2 hours driving home unloading all the gear and going to work the following day........but my barrel was still shooting great at the end..........at this rate the barrel will last longer than I will. I think a 22lr barrel would outlast a lot of shooters also.......but then I wasn't there at the start of that conversation.


Stephen a day out shooting rabbits where I go can be anything from a short to a long walk, a lot of shots off hand but some from bipod. I usually take a bumbag with a bite to eat and a drink..........and take a small pack to bring out the skinned and gutted rabbits.

Clean the rifle when I get home and finish cutting up the rabbits.

Sometimes I'll take a centrefire rifle and turn the rabbits inside out from a distance. I still clean the rifle when I get home and the rabbits stay for the hawks........Kiwi
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Old 06-08-2013, 08:55 AM
stephen perry 1 stephen perry 1 is offline
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Kiwi
Not much different in the States. A walk around would be with either my SKB 20 or my Winchester Model 12 20 gauge along with a Colt 22 SA. I live in a County that is 90% Desert. I was out in Barstow working yesterday 109 deg. Not much moves on the ground at those temps. Birds fly though doves, quail, chukkar, and especially Hawks. Open season on crows plenty of ravens. Jacks out there and yotes.

If I choose to walk it I take my Voodoo pack half water bottles half good munchies. Several knives and compass. Done this since I was 13 so common sense leads the way.

Stephen Perry

Last edited by stephen perry 1; 06-08-2013 at 11:07 AM.
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  #6  
Old 07-20-2021, 05:55 AM
obijohn obijohn is offline
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IMO the best small game hunting is (tree) squirrel hunting in the eastern hardwood forests. I started hunting them in upstate SC as a boy, with my dad's Browning .22 auto, which was surprisingly accurate but I didn't have confidence in it. My favorite type of hunting. It's the reason I got my first really accurate .22 rifle, a Remington 541-S I ordered from a woman with an FFL back in 1981. Still have it, and it looks almost new and shoots as good as when I bought it. I also have several of the classic target rifles (Win 52A, 52C, USRAC repro 52 sporter, plus a Rem 513T and a Kimber 82G star gauge), a Kimber 82 Super America .22, and a CZ 455 American with .22, HM2, and HMR barrels... the HM2 barrel is on the way from Lilja for me to try out this fall. I'm hoping for something that will shoot as accurately as the best .22 target ammo but facilitate longer shots, HM2 ammo is available and fairly inexpensive... and I just wanted it. I used to take my dad's Colt Woodsman with me... saw him shoot a running squirrel with it once... but my eyes can't handle the iron sights like they used to so I bring a Ruger 22/45 with a Burris holo-site on it, and a suppressor so I don't need hearing protection.

I'm semi-retired now, having traveled globally and worked for the past decade, and I am looking forward to spending a month or two in the late fall hunting throughout the southeast from Arkansas to Alabama.
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Old 07-20-2021, 06:59 AM
Foxhunter223 Foxhunter223 is offline
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Sometimes I just sit up on a hill and shoot at the rabbits on the next hill with my old Sako rabbit rifle. Drinks and nibbles beside me, what more could one ask for.




Other times I take the shotgun.



Pete
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  #8  
Old 07-23-2021, 11:01 PM
Branxhunter Branxhunter is offline
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Walking around, sitting and whistling foxes, prone behind a rifle on a bipod, over a bag on the bonnet, walking at night with an LED torch, spotlighting from a vehicle. Whatever best suits the particular terrain and moment.

Marcus
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  #9  
Old 08-07-2021, 01:40 PM
MikeP MikeP is offline
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My small game (non-varmint) hunting is mostly tree squirrels, since I live in Louisiana where there are lots of trees and two types of squirrels that live in them: so-called "cat" and "fox" squirrel varieties. I also pick up the occasional rabbit that I happen to run across in my woody ventures.

I've hunted tree squirrels since I was a kid, beginning in the late 1950s with the then-new 16 gauge Remington Sportsman 58 automatic, the precursor to the famous model 1100.

A few years later, I decided that squirrel hunting would be better with a rifle, so I began hunting with a scoped Browning .22 auto: the little takedown model that feeds through the stock and ejects empties downward. Since the early models of that gun were grooved for .22 scopes on the receiver, and since the receiver could be separated from the barrel with a quarter-twist, I had a gunsmith bore some holes in the barrel for a scope base, which added a bit of stability and thus accuracy. I believe the later models have those base holes bored in the barrel, which is good for accuracy but not so good for the quick-takedown feature since I have to remove the scope base in order to take it down with that quarter-twist that John Browning provided for in one of his many timeless and classic designs. For the next few decases, I killed a lot of squirrels with that gun using .22 SuperX long rifle hollowpoints.

As I got older with more funds to utilize, I got some even more accurate rifles, including several of the Remington 580 family of bolt actions and related 541s, etc. in various light, medium and heavy barrel weights. They all were fun and effective. Not a bad one in the bunch.

Now that I am in my late 70s and approaching feebleness, I've found my muscle control and everything else that requires finding and hitting skittish little targets on tree limbs with a .22, freehand, while remaining noiseless and motionless, is more difficult than it is fun due to the frustrations involved in targeting failures.

So, I've given most all of my .22 squirrel hunting rifles to my grandkids and have gone back to shotguns, where I began. I now am using a 12 gauge Mossberg 500 "Turkey Thug" special with a poly-choke and a scope. What a load of No. 5- or 6-birdshot loses in sportiness, it gains in practicality.

My method of squirrel hunting is to enter the woods a few minutes before daylight when all is quiet. I find a likely spot in the woods near a tree or some brush and open a little folding stool that I rest my weary bones on and watch the woods wake up. I bring a pint-size thermos of strong black coffee to keep mind and mission together for the several hours I'm out there.

If nothing moves after a few minutes of observation, I slowly move a few hundred feet and sit again. More often than not nowadays, the squirrels see me first and because I'm sitting there pretty still and thus virtually unidentifiable to them, they often come closer to see what that new bump-in-the-woods is, thus giving me an opportunity to perform.

I've had pigs come by me without molestation. I've had a coyote run up on me, which got a load of birdshot at close range in the head, which can be effective. Deer, racoons, rabbits, all can be observed if I'm quite and still enough just sitting there sipping my coffee.

During the hunt, which lasts until maybe 1000 hours, if I get a squirrel or three or a rabbit to bring home for a gumbo, good. If I don't, good. It's all good.

It's still fun to be crazy after all these years.

Last edited by MikeP; 08-07-2021 at 01:45 PM.
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